TL;DR: Every time you choose "convenience", and many times you choose "price" (e.g., Android over iPhone) you are actually SELLING YOURSELF, YOUR COUNTRY, YOUR LIBERTY, YOUR CHILDREN. That is what this is all about. I know it isn't fun to think about that, but it is the truth. You want to know how all the people got plugged into The Matrix? How the Eloi came to be food for the Morlocks? They did it to themselves. They, or their fore-bearers volunteered. You chose it for them. Just sayin'. I know the choices aren't convenient, but remind yourself of the real cost. How did we lose our Constitution? We sold it.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/23/01/03/164248/the-hidden-cost-of-cheap-tvs
The Hidden Cost of Cheap TVs (theatlantic.com) 47
Posted by msmash on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @11:01AM from the closer-look dept.
Perhaps the biggest reason TVs have gotten so much cheaper than other products is that your TV is watching you and profiting off the data it collects. From a report:
Modern TVs, with very few exceptions, are "smart," which means they come with software for streaming online content from Netflix, YouTube, and other services. Perhaps the most common media platform, Roku, now comes built into TVs made by companies including TCL, HiSense, Philips, and RCA. But there are many more operating systems: Google has Google TV, which is used by Sony, among other manufacturers, and LG and Samsung offer their own.
Smart TVs are just like search engines, social networks, and email providers that give us a free service in exchange for monitoring us and then selling that info to advertisers leveraging our data. These devices "are collecting information about what you're watching, how long you're watching it, and where you watch it," Willcox said, "then selling that data -- which is a revenue stream that didn't exist a couple of years ago." There's nothing particularly secretive about this -- data-tracking companies such as Inscape and Samba proudly brag right on their websites about the TV manufacturers they partner with and the data they amass.
The companies that manufacture televisions call this "post-purchase monetization," and it means they can sell TVs close to at cost and still make money over the long term by sharing viewing data. In addition to selling your viewing information to advertisers, smart TVs also show ads in the interface. Roku, for example, prominently features a given TV show or streaming service on the right-hand side of its home screen -- that's a paid advertisement. Roku also has its own ad-supported channel, the Roku Channel, and gets a cut of the video ads shown on other channels on Roku devices.
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